The Challenge of the Ego

We all come up against our ego at times and that is no bad thing as the Ego is part of our Personality and is thus part of our Higher Self’s choice for this incarnation. It is how the Self sees itself as distinct from the rest of the world and thus involves how we respond or react to situations- whether we can deal with things calmly or whether we allow ourselves to panic, it decides whether we are outgoing or introvert, placid or excitable to name but a view characteristic traits.

All of these things make us who we are, or who our Higher Self has decided we need to have experience of. This doesn’t mean that we are not meant to change once incarnated if what we have chosen pre-birth does not help us to grow and develop. It is this need to grow and develop that is, I believe, the challenge of the Ego.

Firstly, what do we understand by ego? Without getting too Freudian it’s the part of the personality which includes our defensive , perceptual and intellectual-cognitive functions. Translated from the Latin it means ‘I myself’ and can either reflect an exaggerated sense of self importance or indicate an appropriate sense of pride and self esteem.

There seems to be a very fine line between those last two so for the purposes of this article I will use Ego to mean the former – an exaggerated sense of self importance.

My own understanding, is that Ego, as I have defined it, is situated in what we know as the Lower Self, in other words the first three chakras. It is essential to our Humanness to have a strong personality, to be grounded (1st Chakra) to have healthy self respect(2nd) and enough self confidence(3rd) to be able to deal with all that Life throws at us.

When our Lower Self is strong in this way we are then able to begin the process of developing our Higher Self, (5th,6th and 7th chakras) via the ‘bridge’ of our 4th, the Heart. Then we can begin to transcend the Ego(which on its own is only illusion) and come into who we really are, which is of course Spirit/Soul.

We still retain our uniqueness of Self (ie our indvidual talents, likes etc )that we have chosen for this lifetime and that form our personality, but do not allow ourselves to become trapped by them and thus trapped in the ego state.

Connecting with our Higher Self allows us to see the Bigger Picture, hear the Wider Message, feel the Unending and unconditional Love. When this happens we can be compassionately detached from the problems and difficulties of life. That is not to say we will not feel the initial pain, or the hurt, but, atleast,we have the higher self ability to transcend it before it becomes corrosive and thus recognise that it was only a small part of the greater whole. Indeed, we can often see the problem as an opportunity or gift for our personal and spiritual growth. Then we have true mastery and see things for what they really are rather than investing them with the illusion of reality.

If, however, as often happens we get stuck in our Lower Self ,or Ego state, we feel the intensity of the pain, hurt or rejection continually. It wears away at us like sandpaper on a piece wood, rubbing us raw and thereby increasing the pain , hurt and rejection even more. What was first the wonderful potential gift of spiritual growth becomes instead the hell of needing to defend ourselves continually against the illusory slights and put downs that we feel are being hurled at us.

This is when our ego often becomes inflated, as a defence against these hurts and so we remain imprisoned in our self imposed battlement, constantly hurting ourselves by believing that others are hurting us. In truth, no one can hurt us unless we choose to be hurt. Only we have that power but so often we choose to give it away in our projections onto others. To make them responsible instead of ourselves.

So, if your ego is telling you that someone has hurt you, or maligned you, or ignored you by doing something, or even not doing something to or for you then perhaps look at the possibility that you are stuck in your Lower Self , believing this is the only place available to you. But there is a wonderful world of the Higher Self just over the Heart Bridge where such hurts cannot and do not exist because in this higher place there is all the Love and all the Recognition and all the Acceptance we could ever want or need. And we have them already. Limitless resources of them. Cascading over us. What are we waiting for! Begin that journey to the Higher Self today and leave Ego behind. Happy travelling!